Dragon Trail Drama
Round 6 in Croatia gave us some fantastic racing! CSXBenjeet, standing in for GTEagle, and GTP-DangerousNip gave us arguably the best racing of the season so far.
Qualifying saw CSXBenjeet on pole in GR3 by a full second, with the sister BMW of GTP-DangerousNip in second. Road2fury and jonirune91 rounded off the GR3 field. GR4 favourite doc-shipman could only manage 3rd after his dominant display last season at this very track. He was unable to get a clean lap together on low fuel loads. Pole was taken by his Honda teammate thunder-pigeon, who himself struggled to get a clean lap in. 2nd was taken by farin79, who was only 0.008 ahead of doc-shipman. Tazz rounded off the GR4 entrants.
As the race began, road2fury launched into the first place battle, and the top 3 drivers were all vying for first place into the braking zone. After the chicane, GTP-DangerousNip and CSXBenjeet broke away from road2fury, who was left to defend 3rd against a racey looking jonirune91.
The GR4 field got away cleanly, with doc jumping to second place after the chicane and getting a run on thunder-pigeon into the right hand kink. Not a viable overtaking spot, but doc-shipman stuck his nose in regardless, clipping the inside kerb, colliding with his teammate and sending thunder-pigeon into the gravel and inflicting damage to his teammate. Doc-shipman got away damage free with a 0.2s penalty and the class lead. Farin79 and tazz then gave chase to the lead Honda.
As the first 10 mins continued, the GR3 battles for 1st and 3rd were heating up. GTP-DangerousNip was keeping pace with CSXBenjeet and piling the pressure on. Jonirune91 was doing the same to road2fury, who successfully defended against the speedy Nissan driver. Jonirune91 did briefy get ahead into turn 1 but was unable to make the move stick by going too deep into the corner. This battle came to a crescendo when jonirune91 caught road2fury into the braking zone with overspeed and went into the back of road2fury. On the next lap, jonirune91 went too deep after overtaking road2fury on the pit straight, only to miss the braking point and go off, leaving road2fury to immediately take back 3rd.
In GR4, doc-shipman lead the field until a mistake on the second lap at the chicane of death, forcing him into an early pitstop. This left the Audi's leading the GR4, with the damaged thunder-pigeon around 2s behind. Thunder-pigeon kept on the pace, unable to really close the gap until the tyre wear on the front wheel drive Audi's kicked in. At this point, he closed in on tazz, briefly getting his nose ahead, only for the superior straight line speed of the Audi to take 3rd back off the Honda. One lap later, tazz was powerless to defend against the Honda into the first hairpin. During this battle, farin79 had broke away from his teammate with a healthy 5s gap to the chasing honda.
Every driver appeared to be on the 2 stop strategy. GTP-DangerousNip tried to get the undercut after a briefly getting ahead on the pit straight, only for a late dive from CSXBenjeet on the brakes to get the lead back. CSXBenjeet then pitted, but was able to open up a gap. Jonirune had a big crash at the death chicane, which luckily didn't impact GTP-DangerousNip's out lap too much.
Doc-shipman has been catching the Audi's during the latter stages of the stint and again went for an undercut tactic. The rest of the GR4 cars pitted on the next lap, with thunder-pigeon right on the tail of farin79. Despite the damage repair, thunder-pigeon's fuel saving and pitcrew allowed him to pass the Audi in the pits and reamerge 3s ahead.
Meanwhile, GTP-DangerousNip was all over the back of CSXBenjeet, and took the lead into the first hairpin after CSXBenjeet made a small mistake. Not one to give up, CSXBenjeet kept in the slipstream of the other BMW, biding his time for a move to retake the lead. The M3 lacked the straight line speed down the pit straight, but into the second hairpin at the bottom of the hill, benjeet capitalised on the traffic to regain the lead. Fantastic racing from the pair of BMWs. Unfortunately for CSXBenjeet, he became the latest victim of the chicane of death, collecting damage to the rear of his car on the exit, allowing GTP-DangerousNip back into the lead. CSXBenjeet then pitted, but appeared to not fully repair his car. He pitted again on the next lap to get the damaged fixed, coming out behind road2fury.
GR4 leader thunder-pigeon also picked up damage at the chicane of death after increasing the lead to over 5s. At the final turn, farin was back on terms with the Honda, and duly retook the lead as thunder-pigeon struggled to keep his car stable. But this time, farin79 would be the victim, going in too deep into the first chicane gifting the lead back to the damaged Honda. Thunder-pigeon took an early pit, giving him a longer final stint to complete and potentially come under attack in the dying minutes of the race, but had to fix the damage sooner rather than later.
For the final GR3 stint, CSXBenjeet came out just behind road2fury, making light work passing the Mercedes on worn tyres. This would be the final move in GR3, and GTP-DangerousNip had built a comfortable lead and only major damage would prevent a win for the M6 driver.
Thunder-pigeon emerged from his final out stop in 3rd, and swiftly caught the Audi of tazz, but made light contact to the rear of the Audi under braking. Damage again for thunder-pigeon at the front, and damage to the rear of tazz. Thunder-pigeon promptly backed off to allow tazz back through. He did get the cut back at the hairpin at the bottom of the hill, despite textbook defending from tazz through the high-speed esses and into the braking zone. The second Honda and farin79 Audi had already made their final pit, with tazz maybe staying out a lap too long. This allowed doc-shipman to grab 3rd in class but despite his best efforts, he couldn't catch the Audi of farin79 for a Honda 1-2.
Overall, we had a very eventful race with plenty of great driving, overtakes and drama. A first win for rookie GTP-DangerousNip and bad luck for jonirune91 in GR3, and a last to first for thunder-pigeon in GR4. Farin was unlucky not to win, with only one small mistake in an otherwise faultless race.
Next up is a home race for the Alfa Romeo - Maggiore. Plenty of tricky corners here to keep our drivers on their toes. Everyone will be keen to get a result here before the season finisher in Le Mans a week later.